So, in the last post I wrote the initial design for Shaken, Not Poisoned, a I think the simplified version of the game is the way to go.

But, I need to have something about poisoned martinis in the game, otherwise calling it Shaken, Not Poisoned doesn’t make much sense.

So here’s the current idea for how cards could work in Shaken, Not Poisoned.

On the dance floor, there is also a bar, if a character is close enough to the bar, they can be moved to the bar to pick up a drink. Drinks have special powers, allowing you to move extra characters around the board, switch places with other characters, etc. Drinks can also be poisoned, which could knock your character out, or be assassinated.

The thing that I hope will make this interesting, is that the players will be the ones that will make the deck. Each round, players can pick up 4 cards from their deck, and get to choose 2 they will stock the bar with.

Players take turns to stock the bar with a card. Each card will have the players team name on the back, so players know who poisoned or helped out whom. Cards not used will be discarded. So this should give the player an meaningful choice: should they stock the bar with drinks that will help them, or poisoned drinks.

If you poison the person you are meant to protect, you lose all the points you have collected so far.

So I can see this being a little bit more complicated, but I think it could add a lot to the game. Players can move any character to the bar, so they can make their target drink poison, or they can protect their ally by drinking something that powers them up.

If a player knows their next card placed by another player is poison, and knows who that player’s ally they need to protect is, they can use that poison to remove all the points for the other player.

So I hope this adds another layer of bluffing and information hiding and gathering that people can do playing this game. I’m hoping to see some memorable bluffs and mistakes that come from this.

In terms of teaching this mechanic, it might be good to play a game with just the dance floor, then add the bar and the drinks in later play throughs.

So I’m interested in hearing your thoughts? Could this system be easily broken? Does this sound like fun, or something that is just too complicated? Any drink effects you’d like to see?